Dean, Jacobson Financial Services, LLC
Strategic Wealth Management & Financial Planning

A patient, team-based process with comprehensive services delivered in concert.

A Personal Approach

It’s crucial that we take the time to get to know you. Only by understanding your history and personal values can we appropriately guide your pursuit of financial and life goals.

A Team Focused on You

Your needs and goals are varied; our multi-disciplinary team brings depth of knowledge and efficient coordination to walk with you through each stage of life and to help you face and adapt to the inevitable changes that life brings.

Seamlessly Integrated Services

There are many aspects of your financial life. Our team of advisors bring clarity and continuity to your financial outlook and expectations, with each area of your finances influenced by your overarching plan and consistent with your values.

A Personal Approach

As your private wealth manager, we take the time to understand what you want out of life and how you envision using your wealth. We then use this knowledge to help guide you along your financial journey. Through understanding your life priorities and values alongside your financial goals, we tailor our advice to fit your unique vision. This includes creating a customized financial strategy that can be measured and monitored by its success and congruency in achieving your goals and aligning with your values.

A Team Focused on You

Our clients are the most important people to our firm. We are solely committed to helping our clients pursue their goals through the proper management of all available financial resources in a consistent and coordinated manner. Our true team approach is grounded and reinforced through our firm’s structure. Unlike most financial firms, our clients are clients of the firm, not of our individual advisors. While each client has a primary advisor contact, every client of our firm benefits from the advantages of this team effort and quickly recognizes the synergies of collaborative professional advice and superior service that our system inspires. With over 85 years of combined advisor experience, and a dedicated staff with over 70 years of combined experience, we’re well-positioned to provide you with the highest level of coordinated professional advice and service. This organization structure also provides our clients with the confidence of our firm’s continuity for their entire lives and even to future generations.

Seamlessly Integrated Services

While there is definite value in the separate management of your investments, taxes, insurance, and estate, our vast experience has shown us that the greatest value comes from a comprehensive and holistic coordination of all these critical elements into a cohesive strategy that addresses all your goals throughout each phase of life. We recognize that financial decisions shouldn’t be made in a vacuum. Each decision has ramifications that impact other areas, and there are often necessary trade-offs that must be considered. Our team of advisors are equipped to provide expert advice within specific areas of your financial life – such as investment management, tax planning, insurance and risk management, retirement planning, estate planning, and philanthropy – while incorporating each specific element into actionable short-term needs within a well-designed and customized long-term financial strategy.

Investment Management

Active involvement marks our investment approach – a dynamic process that's uncommon among our peers.

Independence

As a privately owned Registered Investment Adviser, we have always preserved our inherent freedom to offer objective, independent, no-strings-attached financial guidance. This commitment allows our energies to be laser-focused on offering impartial investment strategies toward wealth accumulation, preservation, and management that are solely in your best interest.

Customized Portfolio Involvement

Through our customized, proprietary investment models, we take a unique dual approach to investing. We believe strongly in the time-tested strategy of proactive Strategic Asset Allocation, but combine it with a tactical, market-reactive strategy we call Dynamic Asset Allocation.

Aligned Interests

We offer fee-based investment services based on the assets we manage for you. As a fiduciary, our approach is to always act in your best interest. This gives you the comfort and assurance of knowing your goal and our goal is the same: the long-term growth and preservation of your assets.

Independence

As a privately-owned Registered Investment Adviser (RIA), we have deliberately structured our firm to remain free from the product-driven incentives and institutional pressures that often characterize traditional brokerage and wirehouse models. This independence isn’t just a business model—it’s a philosophy. It means we answer only to our clients, not to shareholders or sales quotas. This independence culminates in our belief that trust begins with transparency. That’s why our fee structure is straightforward, fully disclosed, and free of hidden charges or commissions. As a fee-based RIA, you’ll always know what you’re paying and what you’re paying for. No layers of complexity. No surprise fees. Just clear, predictable, competitive pricing aligned with your best interests—so you can focus on your goals with confidence, knowing our advice is never influenced by outside incentives.

Customized Portfolio Involvement

Through our customized, proprietary investment models, we take a unique dual approach to investing. We believe strongly in the time-tested, proactive strategy of Strategic Asset Allocation, combined with the tactical, market-reactive strategy of Dynamic Asset Allocation. Our goal is to achieve risk-adjusted market returns in your portfolio(s) consistent with your goals and resources. Every investor has their own unique profile. Your specific profile includes how you view risk, the balance of short-term and long-term goals, cash-flow needs, your investment time horizon, and other potential objectives. Your profile is also influenced by your past investment experiences and even the way you first learned about money and investing. We carefully evaluate each of these with you to determine the appropriate investment strategies that are congruent with your investment profile. For a deeper look into our investment process and the various strategies we can employ, click here.

Aligned Interests

We offer fee-based investment services based on the assets we manage for you. Our approach as a fiduciary is to always act in your best interest. This gives you the comfort and assurance of knowing your goal and our goal is the same: the long-term growth and preservation of your assets. We serve our clients as investment fiduciaries. This is the highest standard of care for a RIA. We will always put your interests above our own. We will always act with honesty and integrity and avoid conflicts of interest wherever possible, while timely disclosing any potential conflicts and providing information that is accurate, complete, and objective. We emphasize a culture at our firm that proactively promotes the highest ethical behavior to our clients, to our industry, and to our community. We treat everyone with the utmost respect and civility, recognizing that our clients are entrusting us with their wealth and financial future.

Strategic Asset Allocation

We believe strongly in the time-tested investment strategy of Strategic Asset Allocation.  Asset allocation is the process of constructing a diversified portfolio from a wide range of different asset classes.  An asset class is a broad group of similar securities such as corporate bonds, large company stocks, or foreign company stocks as opposed to a single stock or bond.  Examples of other asset classes would include high yield bonds, small company stocks, U.S. Treasury bills, and real estate.

We believe the most important type of asset allocation is strategic asset allocation.  This involves setting a long-term investment policy, establishing weightings for various asset classes, and making few changes over the short run unless there is a specific change in the investor's objectives.  We reject the strategy of "market timing," as it attempts to predict and capitalize on short-term market swings by shifting the portfolio into specific, concentrated asset classes (particularly stocks) at certain times to improve returns.  A key reason why market timers have had so little success over the long-term is the nature of stock market results: much of the appreciation comes in brief, unexpected bursts that catch investors off guard.

Although outguessing the overall movement of stock prices is an appealing and enticing concept, it has proven very difficult to do consistently in practice. It may seem simple to wait for a market downturn and then intuitively buy stocks after they start going back up; but distinguishing between a brief rally and a major turning point is often an exercise in frustration.  The financial media are fond of highlighting the next supposed hot stock or asset class, but attempts to pick the best stocks or just the right time to invest are surprisingly unproductive.

With few exceptions, strategic asset allocation policy determines how well investors fare over time.  Although no investment policy can guarantee success, strategic asset allocation may help enhance portfolio returns by reducing volatility.

Proper strategic asset allocation may also reduce risk.  Academic research has demonstrated that the performance of different asset classes is not always closely related; some do quite well at the same time others are declining.  Asset allocation strategies take advantage of this lack of correlation to build portfolios that are unlikely to have assets that all do well or poorly at the same time.  As a result, a well-diversified investment account is less likely to suffer huge losses in an unfavorable market environment.

* Strategic Asset Allocation does not insure a profit or protect against loss.

Dynamic Asset Allocation

Over the past 25 years, we’ve witnessed two of the worst bear markets since the Great Depression.  From peak to trough, the S&P 500 index lost over 50% of its value from 2000-2002 (often referred to as the “tech bubble”) and again just 5 years later from 2007-2009 (often referred to as the “Great Recession”).  Regardless of the causes and the name tags, the reality is that even the best strategic asset allocations suffered significant losses because historically diversified correlations among so many asset classes moved closer to one during these extended major bear markets.  This trend has continued during subsequent, albeit less severe and protracted market corrections (including COVID in 2020 and rising interest rates in 2022).

The resulting conclusion from the two historic 50%+ market downturns was that diversification failed to work as good in practice as it did in theory… and at the worst possible time.  Because of that, Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) and its core component strategies, asset allocation and rebalancing – indeed, any investment strategy not involving cash in a mattress – came under attack.  Long-term investment professionals like ourselves were even found asking: are we missing something?  Our conclusion: even the best-designed MPT/asset allocation/rebalancing system is not infallible, which presents significantly enhanced risk to clients near or already in their retirement years.

From these experiences, combined with several decades of in-depth market study and research, we have determined that a second important type of asset allocation is essential for our portfolios: dynamic asset allocation; and we have added that into our models alongside our fundamental and foundational strategic asset allocation approach.  Whereas strategic asset allocation continues its proactive approach by establishing long-term weightings of asset class allocations and staying fully invested through market ups and downs, dynamic asset allocation seeks to be more reactive to significant market movements, specifically attempting first and foremost to provide greater downside protection during protracted market declines.  This strategy aims to take advantage of market momentum that historically tends to overshoot “rational” investor behaviors by reacting in a disciplined quantitative/tactical buy/sell approach to the resulting “mean reversion” when such excesses turn market momentum in the opposite direction.

To be clear, we continue to disavow “market timing” as a reliable investment strategy.  We believe our use of dynamic asset allocation – while quantitatively and tactically making trades on market momentum in a predetermined, disciplined process – is not the same as market timing.  Market timing purports to replace a disciplined financial/economic theoretical framework with gut instinct and intuition.  Unlike market timing, dynamic asset allocation is not a ‘get-rich-quick’ or ‘beat-the-market’ scheme.  Instead, it is a fundamentally sound, fully realized, ‘not-get-poor-quick,’ risk management approach.  It is an advancement of sound stewardship of client assets, consistent with our fiduciary duty to our clients.  In short, our dynamic asset allocation strategies are designed to help when strategic strategies are most vulnerable – during periods of significant and protracted market declines.

With today’s globally integrated economies, complex markets, and the experimental monetary and fiscal policies being used by governments and central banks alike, we believe the unique combination of dynamic asset allocation and strategic asset allocation represents the next generation of innovative investment risk management.

* Dynamic Asset Allocation does not insure a profit or protect against loss.  Enhanced market volatility poses specific potential risks to dynamic asset allocation strategies as large market swings can create “whipsaws” that cause unprofitable trades and can create a drag on performance versus a buy and hold strategy.  Moreover, dynamic asset allocation can be inefficient on an after-tax basis due to the potential recognition of short-term capital gains resulting from excessive volatility triggering sell trades that are not managed for tax-efficient outcomes.

Defining Risk

Everyone talks about risk in connection with investing, but few understand how to actually define it or to measure it.  An investor may know intuitively that “safe” investments like insured bank CDs or Treasury bills have “low” risk, or that stocks have “high” risk, but these are vague terms.  Higher or lower than what?  And by how much?  And how dies one calculate the risk for a whole portfolio containing different types of investments?  We believe a more precise method of describing and assessing risk is a statistical measure known as “standard deviation,” expressed as a single number showing how results in a given period vary from a long-term average.

Investors inherently don't like risk; and insist on getting compensated for it.  Investments that are the most unpredictable (the highest standard deviation) also have the potential to generate the most attractive returns over a long period of time.  These would include aggressive growth stocks and foreign issues, for example.  Investments with low risk (Treasury bills, bonds, etc.) produce lower returns, but usually with much greater predictability.

The purpose of strategic asset allocation is to quantify the risk associated with various asset classes as precisely as possible and construct a portfolio offering the best possible blend of investments to suit your overall objective and risk tolerance.  The role of dynamic asset allocation is to mitigate significant negative returns when markets move past their historical standard deviation measures.

There is no such thing as a single “best” asset allocation policy since investors have a wide range of objectives.  The key, therefore, to assembling the appropriate portfolio for you revolves around a thoughtful and thorough discussion with our professional investment advisors of your financial goals, cash needs, investment experience, and tolerance for fluctuations in portfolio value.

* Taking on more risk does not ensure a higher return.  Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

Securities Selection

We believe that mutual funds and separately managed accounts (SMAs) represent the best method of active investing for most investors.  Mutual funds are a pooled collection of assets that invests in stocks, bonds, and other securities, managed by a lead portfolio manager(s) and accompanied by a team of analysts.  Each investor in a mutual fund owns a share(s) of that fund representing a small portion of all the investments inside that mutual fund.  Mutual funds do not trade intraday like individual stocks and bonds.  Instead, they are valued each day after the markets close.  A Separately Managed Account (SMA) is a type of investment portfolio owned by an individual investor but managed by a professional investment manager.  Unlike mutual funds or ETFs, where multiple investors pool their money together, an SMA is customized specifically for a single client’s needs, allowing for a tailored investment strategy.  An SMA’s portfolio can also be traded and valued intraday through the pricing and/or buying and selling of its underlying holdings, providing more opportunities for tax-efficient investing.

We do not proclaim to be "stock pickers,” but instead realize our true role as investment allocation specialists, financial advisors, and wealth managers.  The institutional money manager has a resource and knowledge edge for stock/bond selection and management that is significantly beyond what anyone in the [financial planning or wealth management] business can bring to the table.  Put a different way, it is inconceivable that someone who does something other than focusing on stock/bond selection (which includes wealth managers, most stock brokers, and certainly clients) and has far less resources than the professionals they are competing with, can look at a stock or bond and presumably determine an inherent value; then, determine that, if that stock/bond is bought, the market value is less than the inherent value and constantly re-evaluate that.  In short, the "amateur" is not going to beat the professionals over the long run.  This has been proven time and again through multiple studies.

Therefore, we spend our time and energy identifying mutual fund and SMA managers that have provided consistently strong performance year after year relative to a meaningful peer group and benchmark.  Because of the financial media's focus on each year's hottest performers, many investors never hear about the funds and managers that provide this kind of consistent performance.  Our research of mutual funds and SMA managers is conducted using an extremely thorough and analytical analysis of a number of important factors.  Investing excellence means more than last year's return – or even the last ten year's records.  It must take into account a much wider range of factors, including fund management experience, performance consistency, expense costs, and portfolio management discipline.  Managers who have a clear philosophy and consistently implement it through a disciplined process are more likely to be able to replicate the results.  If we change our opinion on a mutual fund or SMA, it’s usually because of a fundamental change in the fund/SMA or its management, not simply due to a shift in short-term performance.

A short period of under-performance doesn’t always indicate the mutual fund or SMA manager has lost his or her touch.  It may, in fact, simply demonstrate that the manager remains true to their objective and style regardless of short-term changes to market trends and emphases.  However, we do carefully watch and monitor the managers we select for several types of events – in conjunction with poor performance – that will merit an in-depth review of a manager and potentially lead to a change.  These primarily include:

  • Change in management company ownership,
  • New portfolio manager or team,
  • Significant change in asset allocation,
  • Substantial drift in investment style, and/or
  • Sustained under-performance against benchmarks and/or peers.

This comprehensive process illustrates our hands-on, active approach to active manager selection, which our empirical data suggests has had a positive impact on the long-term consistency of our clients’ investment portfolio performance.  Keep in mind, however, past performance is no guarantee of future results.

In addition to active mutual fund and SMA managers, we also use Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs).  ETFs are typically passive “index” investments that allow intraday trading just like individual stocks and bonds.  More recently, however, we’re beginning to use active ETFs that many mutual fund companies are offering to provide the same [or mirrored] investment management of an actively managed mutual fund, but at a significantly lower cost.  The ETFs we use most are passive investments, in that they don’t have investment managers, but instead simply track a specified market index.  Our goal with ETFs is to gain broad market exposure to indices with the most liquidity and lowest cost possible.  We use ETFs and the “passive” index investment strategy exclusively in our dynamic asset allocations.

Model Portfolios

As we do with almost every aspect of our business, we have from time to time cast a critical eye upon our investment strategies.  While we are happy with our current investment approach and its seamless fit into our wealth management practice, we are always looking for ways to improve and refine the investment services, products and strategies we provide to our clients.

We arrived at our current investment approach through an evolutionary process that continues today.  We have created and modeled broad asset allocations that are used as a starting point for investing client portfolios.  Currently, we use seven model portfolios, each composed with a combination of actively managed mutual funds and/or SMAs (as described above) and index-linked exchange traded funds (ETFs).  These portfolios range from balanced/conservative to aggressive growth with varying levels of tax efficiencies.  Although ETFs, mutual funds, and SMAs may lose value, we believe that their breadth of diversification enhances the long-term success of our clients’ portfolios in both up and down markets.

While these models serve as base portfolios, each client account is unique because of inception date, cash flow needs, tax implications, fund manager selections, and specific client preferences.  Lower-expense portfolios are also one of our key strategic goals.  Keeping an overall cost to you, our client (e.g., our fee, platform fees, and the fees of the underlying investments) below that of the average investment advisory platform is paramount for long-term success and ultimate client satisfaction.

Through the use of ETFs for “core” positions inside the portfolios, the overall expense ratios of our portfolios can be lowered while providing exposure to a wide set of asset classes that are needed in order to achieve good risk-adjusted returns.  As alluded to above, we also use actively managed mutual funds and ETFs run by managers who have been identified as being capable of adding value in their respective asset classes and/or sectors.  These “enhanced” portions of the portfolios provide the potential for positive performance during unfavorable market trends and more reasonably managed risk during market “bubbles”.

The specific allocation levels at which we incorporate ETFs versus actively managed mutual funds and/or SMAs varies depending on existing market and economic conditions as well as the overall weightings between Strategic Asset Allocation and Dynamic Asset Allocation.  Core positions may be set using either, or a combination of both.  For high net worth (HNW) clients, our portfolios typically use SMAs and ETFs more extensively for better tax-efficiency, greater customization, and the ability to reduce fees even further through more significant platform fee breakpoints.

Alternative Investments & Annuities

Two additional methods of investing that we may implement in and alongside our model portfolios is alternative investments and annuities.  Alternative investments and strategies vary a great deal across a broad spectrum of alternatives including hedge strategies, real estate, private equity, private credit, commodities, structured products, master limited partnerships (MLPs), and business development companies (BDCs).  Various mixtures of these investments are strategically used in our model portfolios with the intent of capturing positive returns while reducing overall portfolio volatility and losses due to their low correlation to other traditional portfolio allocations.  In this area, we actively utilize our unique access to some of the most prominent alternative investment companies and institutional managers available in the world.

Annuities often get a bad rap from financial media personalities.  However, these unique financial products have their purposes and can be used extremely efficiently to address many investors’ desires for wealth accumulation, guaranteed income protection, and tax deferral.  There are also many different types of annuities that each have unique features and purposes.  For investors seeking to ensure a reliable income stream during retirement, annuities offer benefits such as predictability, tax advantages, and options for customizing to fit specific needs and goals.  Navigating the world of annuities can be complex, and the right choice depends on your personal financial situation and retirement goals.  Our process of annuity selection and use begins and ends with your needs and goals.  

It's also important to note that our process of being a fiduciary and acting solely in your best interest is never compromised, regardless of the type of alternative investment and/or annuity that may be implemented to help achieve your long-term goals.  We spend extra time and effort going through the intricacies and details of all these type of investment products so you can have the confidence and knowledge of the costs, risks, and special features.

* Alternative investments may not be suitable for all investors and involve special risks such as leveraging the investment, potential adverse market forces, regulatory changes, and potentially illiquidity. The strategies employed in the management of alternative investments may accelerate the velocity of potential losses.

Client Portfolio Strategy Reviews

Our model client portfolios have behaved in a consistent fashion.  All performance-based communication with our clients is consistent, educational, and fact-based rather than promised-based.  We explain to all our clients and prospective clients that our goal is to achieve risk-adjusted market returns in their portfolios consistent with their unique goals and resources.  The specific risk/return characteristics of each client’s portfolio are tied to the all-important selection of their strategic asset allocations.

That decision, made jointly between you and your primary advisor, is based upon risk preferences and wealth management outcomes.  At each review meeting, we provide reports that include net-of-fee returns and then compare those returns to a wide variety of appropriate and relative market indexes and benchmarks.  Setting reasonable investment expectations is paramount.  The quality of these discussions can then be greatly improved as we spend more time on elements of your financial life that you can control, or at least affect, and less time discussing performance from a perspective of hindsight biases and arbitrary measurements.

Our review and strategy meetings with you are dynamic and ongoing.  We continually use our reviews to reinforce and educate our clients to our investment approaches, clarifying the fundamental tenets and standards on which our investment advice is based.  We also regularly clarify the following things that do not impact our advice, but which are so often touted by so-called “financial experts” in the media and wirehouse firms: (1) we will never promise to consistently outperform or “outfox” the markets; (2) we won’t make portfolio changes based on the latest political or economic events in the news; and (3) we’ll never chase returns of hot sectors and/or stock tips from relatives, golf partners, or zany cable TV money show hosts.

As stated above, we are not stock-pickers or market-timers.  And that is not how we attempt to add value to our clients' lives.  Instead, we stay focused on accumulating and preserving your wealth that is consistent with your goals, personal investment profiles and preferences, and overall financial resources.

In Review

We understand that not all investors are attracted to our investment philosophies and strategies – a fact of life that we are willing to live with.  We employ great discipline of adhering to tried, tested, and proven fundamental investment principles – an approach that we are committed to, which is consistent with our disciplined approach to investing and wealth management.  And while we’re confident that this approach is providing an excellent value to our clients, we will never stop researching for better ways to do things.  We will continuously evaluate changes that provide an opportunity to efficiently provide our clients more and better services, investment strategies, and financial products that improve their lives and fulfill their dreams.  That is our commitment.

Risk Management

Providing an awareness that helps you maintain financial stability in the face of unexpected life events.

Preserving Financial Stability

By recognizing potential threats to your financial well-being, we can take proactive measures to safeguard your assets and income – a crucial step in the wealth management process.

Informed Decision-Making

Understanding the broad context of specific risks allows you to make more informed decisions with your finances, investments and comprehensive financial plans.

Adaptable Strategies

As you move through different stages of life, your financial risks evolve. Regularly assessing these risks helps you adapt your financial strategies to your changing circumstances and needs.

Preserving Financial Stability

Risk management plays a crucial role in the wealth management process by identifying, assessing, and mitigating potential threats to your financial well-being and investment goals. Effective risk management must also incorporate specific strategies to minimize the negative impact of taxes on wealth and income. We understand that protecting your wealth is as important as growing it. By proactively managing risk, our team of advisors can help you navigate market volatility, economic uncertainties, personal financial changes, and unexpected life events, as well as the tax implications inherent in the accumulation, preservation, and distribution of wealth. We believe risk management demands dual strategies that are both broadly comprehensive and target specific. This all-encompassing approach requires a broad perspective on identifying risks, along with a deep knowledge of unique methods for mitigating them. Through creative planning and disciplined management, financial risks and adverse tax consequences can be minimized, allowing for more sustainable growth and enhanced protection of wealth.

Informed Decision-Making

Risk management is a multifaceted concept that involves understanding the nature of risks, evaluating their likelihood and potential impact, and applying effective strategies to manage them. These strategies can include: (1) transference, (2) avoidance, (3) reduction, and (4) retention. We divide assets that fall within the study of risk management into three categories: (1) those which produce and/or assist in the production of income (e.g., investments, professional equipment, etc.); (2) those which provide for the necessary function of living (e.g., shelter, clothing, transportation, etc.); and (3) those which enhance the quality of life (e.g., home ownership, vacation property, art, recreation equipment, etc.). Through a comprehensive analysis of your assets, we can help you determine what financial impact a loss of an asset would have on you and whether you’re willing and/or able to pay that cost in the event of such a loss. This conscious decision must be made to determine when and where it is more economically feasible and/or preferable to use insurance to transfer such risks to a third party. Our team of advisors is experienced in many areas of insurance including life, disability, and long-term care. All our tailored insurance solutions offer peace of mind by safeguarding your assets against unforeseen events. Whether you need to secure your family’s future, protect your business, or ensure your investments are shielded from risk, we’re here to design a strategy that aligns with your financial goals. You can trust us to provide the coverage you need so you can focus on building your legacy with confidence. And, just like our investment process, our advisors remain independent with access to some of the finest insurance products and companies in the world.

Adaptable Strategies

Life is a journey marked by various milestones and transitions, and the realities of risk are an inevitable part of every stage. Whether you’re building your career, planning for your children’s education, or preparing for retirement, each stage comes with its own set of financial risks and opportunities. Our approach to risk management is to provide a dynamic plan that grows and evolves alongside you. For younger adults, this likely means significant life insurance needs and protecting one’s income. For older adults, this may mean planning for the potential financial risk of extended long-term care services and reducing potential estate taxes. Wherever you are in your life journey, we work closely with you to tailor strategies that address your unique needs and goals at every phase of life. By proactively adjusting our strategies, we can help safeguard your assets and support your financial well-being, no matter where life takes you.

Tax Planning

Helping ensure you’re not paying more in taxes than necessary to retain more of your hard-earned wealth.

A Long-Term Focus

Unexpected taxable events can become one of the single greatest costs you encounter. We take a forward-thinking approach to help you make informed choices, considering how your current and future tax situation may impact planned investment or retirement outcomes.

Optimized Investment Practices

It’s the growth on your wealth AFTER tax that matters. With an appropriate balance between taxable and non-taxable investments along with the implementation of techniques such as tax-loss harvesting, our focus is on reducing your overall tax liability.

A Variety of Tools

Whether your focus is reducing income taxes, minimizing capital gains taxes, or eliminating estate taxes, we have the knowhow and tools needed to give you confidence that your plans are as tax-efficient as possible.

A Long-Term Focus

It’s no stretch to suggest that most of us are unhappy when it comes to paying taxes. We know that is certainly true of our clients who are working hard to accumulate wealth. You may feel that you’re paying too much or that you simply don’t understand the process well enough. Tax planning should never be reactive. One unexpected taxable event—a large capital gain, the sale of a business, or an ill-timed withdrawal—can become one of the most significant and unnecessary costs in your financial life. That’s why we take a forward-looking, integrated approach to tax strategy. By analyzing not just your current tax exposure but also forecasting how future changes in income, legislation, or asset values may affect your tax picture, we help you make smarter, more informed decisions today. This proactive approach supports more predictable outcomes in retirement, investment management, and wealth transfer—minimizing tax surprises and maximizing long-term after-tax wealth. Such analysis should be coordinated with estimated income tax requirements by your CPA.

Optimized Investment Practices

When it comes to building wealth, it's not just what you earn—it's what you keep. We emphasize strategies that optimize after-tax returns by thoughtfully structuring portfolios across tax-advantaged and taxable accounts. Techniques like tax-loss harvesting, asset location (placing the right investments in the right account types), and intelligent rebalancing help reduce current and future tax liabilities. Our investment process integrates seamlessly with your tax plan to ensure your portfolio works hard—not just in terms of performance, but in tax efficiency. The result is a smarter approach to investing, where growth is pursued with a full understanding of its tax implications.

A Variety of Tools

Every client’s tax profile is different, and so is the mix of strategies required to optimize it. Whether your goals include minimizing annual income taxes, reducing capital gains exposure, or eliminating—or at least mitigating—estate taxes, we bring a comprehensive set of tools to the table. These may include Roth conversion strategies, specialized retirement accounts—such as a solo 401(k) or a robust 401(k) or defined benefit plan—for your business, charitable gifting vehicles (such as donor-advised funds or charitable remainder trusts), grantor and irrevocable trusts, and income-shifting strategies across generations. Our expertise lies not just in knowing what tools are available, but in selecting the right combination—tailored to your circumstances—to give you peace of mind that your financial life is as tax-efficient as possible, now and in the future.

Retirement Planning

Likely the biggest and most complex financial decision you’ll face – made simple, clear and easy to follow.

Retirement's Full Potential

Your retirement years should be a time of joy and fulfillment, where you enjoy the rewards of your hard work and use your wealth to reflect your values and shape your legacy.

Simplifying the Complex

The number of variables that affect your path to financial independence can be overwhelming. With decades of experience, we understand those challenges intimately. Our role is to transform a thorough, comprehensive process into a clear, enjoyable experience – one that’s easy to follow and built around your goals.

Interactive and Ongoing

A plan on paper is practically worthless. A plan in practice? Practically priceless. We deliver an interactive planning experience – digitally accessible and continuously updated – that adapts as your life evolves. A living, breathing roadmap designed to guide you confidently into the future.

Retirement's Full Potential

Maximizing your retirement potential involves much more than just saving; it’s about strategic planning and informed decision-making. Obviously, saving is a critical component, but to reach your highest retirement potential, HOW you save can be as important as WHAT you save over the long run. In his book “greatness,” renowned sports psychologist, David Cook, coined the process, “See, Feel, Trust” to inspire greatness from some of the world’s premier athletes. We feel that same mental process can be effective in the realm of retirement planning. Many people save money but fail to envision more specifically what they want their retirement to look like. Without such vision and a disciplined planning process, retirement planning, and even retirement itself, can result in disappointment. Unlocking your full retirement potential is a multi-layered process that involves a well-planned life vision (see) of what you want your retirement years to look like, followed by discerning what you must do now (feel) to make that happen, then believing in the process (trust) of what you see and feel through the confident implementation of your plans with our team of advisors. “See it. Feel it. Trust it.” Your retirement years should be a time of joy and fulfillment, where you enjoy the rewards of your hard work and use your wealth to reflect your values and shape your legacy

Simplifying the Complex

Our advisors are experts in navigating the diverse world of retirement savings options. We can guide you through various employer-sponsored plans—like 401(k)s, Roth 401(k)s, 403(b)s, 457 plans, pension plans, and SIMPLE IRAs—as well as individual retirement plans, including IRAs, Roth IRAs, annuities, and solo 401(k)s. Each of these options comes with its own set of features and tax benefits designed to help you build a solid retirement nest egg. Finding the plan that best suits your needs or your business can make a significant impact on your long-term financial success. Almost everyone can identify with the fears of outliving their wealth. Rest assured, with careful planning and our expert guidance, we can help you build a strategy that not only addresses these concerns, but also provides the financial security you need throughout your retirement. We aim to simplify the complexities of this phase of your life, ensuring you can enjoy your retirement with confidence.

Interactive and Ongoing

We recognize the importance of having a dynamic retirement guide; call it an interactive map. With so many possible variables to consider during your retirement years, it’s paramount for us to help you with your visions and expectations through robust retirement projections using numerous variables across multiple scenarios. Through these retirement projections and stress tests, we can identify optimum strategies to help overcome the obstacles of a successful retirement, such as taxes, healthcare, volatile investment markets, and inflation. This impressive and robust tool will inspire you to action by becoming your own tangible, easy-to-access, personal map to guide you into and through your retirement years.

Estate Planning

Allowing for thoughtful stewardship of resources both during and beyond your lifetime.

It’s Different Now

Many people underestimate the emotional and financial impact estate plans can have on heirs. Traditional estate planning provides for the passage of assets and payment of debts/expenses at death. Modern estate planning has been expanded to include much, much more.

Effective Wealth Transfer

Experience matters. Our advisors are dedicated to helping your legal counsel craft personalized estate plans to ensure they’re distributed according to your wishes and help your patterns of stewardship endure. Equally important, we help to prepare and navigate survivors through the estate progression with sensitivity, care, and understanding after a loved one’s passing.

There’s More…

An estate plan should not be generic. It’s personal. We often see and hear sad stories of how very prominent and wealthy individuals failed to plan effectively, which inevitably caused havoc amongst their family and heirs, nasty litigation battles, and cost them millions of dollars in unnecessary taxes. Suffice it to say, procrastinating estate planning is not in your best interest.

It’s Different Now

Too often, people underestimate the emotional and financial impact a well– or poorly–designed plan can have on their loved ones. We help ensure your wishes are not only documented – but understood, respected and thoughtfully implemented. At the very least, estate plans should include the following vital ancillary documents along with the will: Powers of Attorney, Healthcare Proxy, Living Will, HIPAA Waiver, Declaration of Guardian, and Directive to Physicians. Your circumstances and your level of wealth may require even more planning and legal documents, such as: planning for incapacity, asset protection strategies, income and estate tax planning, business succession planning, prenup planning, special needs trusts, charitable gift planning, planning for digital assets, living trusts, family limited partnerships, and legacy planning. We have longstanding relationships with several excellent estate planning attorneys who we rely on to help our clients secure the necessary legal documents for their specific situations. We also work seamlessly alongside attorneys with whom our clients already have established relationships. Our team of advisors provide a wealth of ideas and practical recommendations for your estate plan that can be implemented through these board-certified estate planning lawyers.

Effective Wealth Transfer

We combine our years of practical experience and strategic insight with compassionate guidance to navigate the complexities of estate planning, helping you achieve peace of mind knowing that your wealth will be transferred seamlessly and efficiently. With a rich history spanning generations, our advisors are already assisting fourth-generation clients who are beneficiaries of the wealth created by their parents, grandparents, and even great-grandparents. This longstanding experience allows us to provide personalized, multi-generational guidance, ensuring that your family’s legacy is managed with the same care and foresight that has been passed down through the years. We strive to help families remember, we pass down not only our valuables, but more importantly our values. Plan accordingly.

There’s More…

For many of our clients, faith and family are the most important things in their life. Material wealth is much further down on the list of priorities. Yet so many people procrastinate this area of planning because it deals with two areas most people prefer not to talk about: death and taxes. We believe that’s the wrong perspective to take regarding estate planning. In fact, it’s only through a thoughtful, well-designed, and transparently communicated estate plan that the most important things in your life—especially regarding faith and family—can best be passed down. For ultra-high net worth individuals and couples, this area of planning is particularly crucial. Careful consideration must be taken in situations with unequal distributions, blended families, heirs with special needs or unique talents, and family businesses with active involvement from children. Additionally, the complexities and impact of estate and income taxes are significantly greater. Our advisors, in collaboration with other professionals such as estate attorneys and accountants, are skilled at crafting innovative, practical, and effective strategies to achieve your legacy goals.

Legacy Planning & Philanthropy

A powerful tool for teaching your values, principles and life lessons to the next generation.

A Lasting Legacy

Thoughtful preparation allows you to create a lasting impact on your children's, grandchildren’s, and even great grandchildren’s lives, shaping their future even after you're gone – instilling financial responsibility and promoting your family values.

Teaching through Example

Your approach to planning itself can serve as a valuable lesson to your children, demonstrating foresight and the value of long-term thinking and encouraging open communication to promote financial literacy.

Expressing Your Core Beliefs

Your legacy is more than wealth – it’s a reflection of what you stand for. Identifying causes and organizations that align with your values and passions can transform charitable giving into a lasting expression of purpose, impacting your family, your community and the causes that matter most to you.

A Lasting Legacy

Thoughtful legacy planning is about far more than passing down wealth—it's about shaping the future of your family for generations. As skilled advisors we help high-net-worth families design intentional strategies that reflect their values, aspirations, and family dynamics. Through structures such as trusts, family governance plans, and multi-generational wealth education, we help you influence not only the financial well-being of your children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren—but also their character, their sense of responsibility, and their understanding of stewardship. By addressing not just what is passed down, but how and why, we help ensure your legacy is resilient, values-based, and purpose-driven.

Teaching through Example

The planning process itself is a powerful teaching tool. When parents and grandparents involve their heirs in discussions around long-term planning, charitable giving, and investment philosophy, as well as work ethic, gratitude, and accountability, they create invaluable opportunities for learning and growth. As holistic advisors, we can help facilitate these conversations, helping families communicate openly and constructively about money, responsibility, and purpose. By modeling foresight and discipline, and by including the next generation in selected aspects of the planning process, you help instill the habits and mindset needed to sustain wealth across generations. The result is not just a plan—but a family culture built around clarity, confidence, and continuity.

Expressing Your Core Beliefs

Your financial legacy is an opportunity to express what you care about most. Whether it’s supporting a cause close to your heart, building a family foundation, or establishing a donor-advised fund, philanthropy allows you to turn values into action. A holistic wealth advisor works with you to identify meaningful ways to integrate giving into your broader financial strategy, balancing tax efficiency with personal impact. We help you create a philanthropic roadmap that aligns your resources with your beliefs—so that your wealth becomes a vehicle for purpose. Done well, this not only benefits the organizations and communities you care about, but also inspires future generations to lead with generosity and intention.